I've been very undecided about what I thought about unions and organized labor for a long time now. Even after joining IATSE Local 80 two years ago, I still wasn't sure what to think.

And I still don't.

But Wisconson has got me thinking and has gotten me over the first hump in my thought process.

Unions are good and necessary, but not all unions are necessarily good.

A little explanation. I believe that organized labor and collective bargaining are the only way to resist the pressures of corporate greed and to ensure the fair treatment of workers everywhere(including the workers in government jobs). I also believe that just like laws, unions can be good and they can be bad; and just like bad laws aren't a reason to get rid of the rule of law altogether, bad unions(unethical, greedy, unrepresentative) are no reason to get rid of workers rights to organize.

I still have a lot of thinking to do on the subject. I'll report when I have more to say.

Not only is it a great memory full of awesome sights but it was over the course of this trip that I had time to think about the change I was making. Much of that thinking wasn't conscious, but there were a few moments of clarity that were interesting. I've also had a few different ideas about how to write this, so instead of doing all of that hard work of deciding on what to do, what you're going to see is a potpourri of the various directions I was thinking about.

The Crowne Plaza in Pittsburgh has hard mattresses and slow breakfast service, but we persevered and got on our way for our last day on the road. There was a gorgeous layer of fluffy snow on the car and more coming down for us to watch while we ate breakfast. Once we got underway we saw right away what a beautiful city Pittsburgh is.

Today is the day that all the previous planning fully went out the window. Memphis wasn't really on the schedule, but it didn't seem that much out of the way and we were still going to Nashville so it was fine. Today, we didn't even set foot in Nashville at all, instead we spent most of the day in Memphis, which it turns out has so much to offer, and then drove past Nashville and are spending the night in Georgetown, Kentucky.

I laughed a lot, but not the laughter of humor(although there was a little of that), but the laughter of dismay that something so incredibly unexpected could exist and is right in front of you. I gasped a lot, every turn brought a new and surprising twist. I sat peacefully in environments that shouldn't exist outside of dreams.